For months and months we had to read in this publication all the contrived stories about the effect of extending the runway at the airport by a few hundred feet, which was necessary for safety reasons.

A small and most irritating group promulgated scare stories about 747s landing here, airplanes flying into the schools, huge traffic jams on the Airport Road, noise pollution, private jet traffic and other garbage lies that were just conjured up. Everything they said didn’t amount to a hill of beans then, or now!

They even went as far to spread stories about the integrity of the Airport Authority and that was particularly unfair. We are a group of pilots who use the airport and I think we are fairly astute in our observation that we have a well-run airport here, and we also know that the Airport Authority is a fine group of professional gentlemen doing a great job!

They are at the top of their game in obtaining this latest two million dollar grant to re-pave the taxi area and parking areas for airplanes. We need money like this brought in to our community and the cost to us locally is really small. We should applaud the Airport Authority for the work they did in filing for this grant and commend them for extending the safety margins of the runway. People should also be aware that if we have an emergency in this area, such as floods or earthquakes that damage the roadway infrastructure and bridges, all emergency aid to us will have to come in through the airport.